'Mentor To Us All'

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE RECENT death of Robert Penn Warren, America's first poet laureate, must have brought back many memories for an entire generation of students, lovers or writing and poetry.

I was one of that generation of graduate students of the late 1940s and early 1950s inspired by Warren.

In 1949 I enrolled as a graduate student studying for a master's degree in English at the University of Minnesota.

One of my teachers was Warren. I have vivid memories of Warren striding into the classroom and without much academic jargon starting a conversation about the characters in a novel or the lines of a particular poem he had recently read.

His book co-authored by Cleanth Brooks, Understanding Poetry, nourished a generation of young students in the love of poetry and writing.